Windhorst: The Clippers need to take this L -- and move on

A day after he was fined $30 million by the NBA for salary cap circumvention involving Kawhi Leonard and his LA Clippers disclosed the team had paid $50 million in legal fees, team owner Steve Ballmer's net worth increased by $4.3 billion.

This is a parlor game. Ballmer's net worth, based on his 330 million Microsoft shares, often fluctuates by several billion before lunch. But it is also an exercise in perspective.

It's easy to lose that perspective in high-intensity moments, and the Clippers and Ballmer are in one now.

They are steaming mad at the NBA for the five draft-pick penalty, a sentiment that spilled out in two lengthy statements they released Wednesday, one of them an open letter to NBA commissioner Adam Silver that was the legalese version of a rant. It was likely as close to the fury Ballmer, famous for his emotion, was expressing behind the scenes as his lawyers would allow.

The Silver letter is a classic precursor to a lawsuit, raising a number of issues that could be turned into legal arguments, the document serving as a chance for the NBA to reconsider.

Which, for the time being, the league will not be doing.

Should the Clippers go this legal route there's likely to be a protracted fight that the NBA, which, with its constitution and private club status on its side, would be favored to win.

If there's room for a brief respite of perspective, however, perhaps the Clippers should strongly consider another direction entirely:

Bypassing that option and accepting the punishment.

Not to be contrite or lay down, necessarily, but as the best course of action -- the best strategy for their franchise.

If you've consumed any media this week about the punishment, it is likely you saw references to the 2000 case involving the Minnesota Timberwolves losing five first-round picks (from 2001 to 2005) for a comparable violation.

If you were an NBA fan then, you might remember some things about it. How it involved former No. 1 draft pick Joe Smith and an under-the-table contract that violated the rules.

The Clippers would be wise to go back and study just how that situation went down if they haven't already. "They knew it was wrong. They did it anyway. They got caught. And now they have to pay the price. This is a fraud," then-commissioner David Stern said the day he handed down the punishment in October 2000.

"This wasn't a close call. This wasn't some gray area. This was a clear, calculated attempt to defraud the system."

In the immediate aftermath, then-Wolves owner Glen Taylor claimed nothing sinister and even posited the damning document was supposed to be sent to Stern "for his approval" but wasn't for some unexplained reason.

Head of basketball operations Kevin McHale pleaded ignorance to the illicit document's existence.

Two months later in December, after some behind-the-scenes meetings and direct negotiations with deputy commissioner Russ Granik, Taylor and McHale had softened their comments.

They folded their defense and agreed to seasonlong suspensions.

"I'm not happy about this, but I accept it," Taylor said at the time. "I watch all the away games on television. Now I'll watch all the games on television."

Two days after Taylor announced his surrender, Stern immediately gave the Wolves back their 2003 first-round pick.

The Wolves got their penalty reduced before Christmas! For the simple act of accepting their fate.

One year later, just after Christmas, Stern gave the Wolves back their 2005 first-round pick.

The episode was still a painful and embarrassing blow, but the Wolves mitigated the situation and reduced the pain by 40%. Within a calendar year.

"In light of the other penalties that have been imposed on the Timberwolves, and the team's conduct since the Smith matter concluded, we feel it is appropriate," Stern said when he returned the second pick.

And not for nothing, nine months after the Wolves were slapped, Smith returned and signed a six-year deal with the team.

The Wolves made the playoffs every year of the penalty and made the conference finals in 2004 (having in his prime Kevin Garnett surely helped).

Stern and Granik, two savvy lawyers running the league at the time, left room to negotiate when they issued the heavy penalty. The Wolves got past their denials and their instinct to fight and made a deal that was in the best interest of the franchise.

The top two lawyers at the NBA now, Silver and 33-year league office veteran Rick Buchanan, engineered this investigation and punishment on the Clippers. They are as accomplished and savvy as their predecessors.

The maneuver that has drawn the attention, and perhaps even the admiration, of some in the league is that the NBA cut a plea deal with Leonard and the player's union before announcing the findings and suspension, eliminating the Clippers' ability to take the case to a neutral arbitrator.

Leonard and the union agreed to a penalty, a $700,000 fine, and will move on.

Buchanan was part of the team that leveled the Wolves' penalty, and he certainly remembers that Smith and the union went to arbitration against the league.

Smith's contract was voided. It was upheld by the arbiter, but it slowed the process.

The league learned and played it differently this time.

Without Leonard and the ability to go to arbitration with the union, the Clippers have fewer options to fight back and a narrower pathway to win. Teams are not permitted to go to arbitration with the league. Additionally, the report from the Wachtell Lipton law firm left open the possibility of further investigation and accusations, a saber-rattling move.

Here is where the Clippers could study the Wolves, who 26 years ago mulled their options and got their emotions in check.

It probably feels like the Clippers' world is ending. Losing five first-round picks and, perhaps just as importantly, the ability to trade any remaining picks around those taken from 2029 to 2034 is crushing.

It badly damages the Clippers' hand next summer too, when they would have cleared some cap space to perhaps chase free agents who now know they would be joining a weakened franchise.

But the Clippers are not helpless and, despite some who want to grab low-hanging fruit in the wake of how this played out, they have repeatedly made smart front office moves.

They have made three big trades in the past six months that cleaned up their books.

Leonard's contract, unlike Smith's, wasn't voided. If the Clippers can complete an agreed-upon trade with the Toronto Raptors for Leonard, LA will be acquiring two unprotected first-round picks, plus former All-Star Brandon Ingram. They still have first-rounders in 2027 and 2029 -- yes, they have given away the swap rights -- and their cap is in very good shape.

This is not a wasteland. It's a challenge, but they still play in Los Angeles and there are still factors in their favor.

If they play their cards correctly, they might be able, in time, to recoup one or perhaps two of the first-rounders they've been docked. It won't happen today and, after their rhetoric this week, it likely wouldn't happen for Christmas.

But the precedent is there and this entire situation is heavily based in precedent.

It might not be time to sue; it might be time to negotiate.

ESPN's Shams Charania reported this week that the league's lawyers were in touch with the Clippers' lawyers in the weeks leading up to the penalty.

That was time to negotiate, too. Clearly it did not work. But the world has now changed. Silver issued his ruling and it's a whopper.

"There's more than one way to get the league to change the penalty," one league executive said. "The Wolves went soft and it worked -- fine. The Clippers could go hard, and it could work. That's what lawyers are for."

That's true. That sentiment was heard from more than one corner.

"Knowing what you know about Steve Ballmer, what makes you think he's a dove?" one Eastern Conference general manager said. "That guy is a hawk."

Then there was the other side. "The first thing they could do is apologize," a Western Conference general manager said.

"To their fans and to the league. That would be novel of them. Then go from there."

Where they go from here is the next phase. And it's a crucial one for how all of this is actually going to end.br/]